Stephen K. Bannon is an elusive figure in the Trump administration. We don’t see much of him and don’t often hear his voice, yet we know that he is the president’s leading adviser and a strong influence in shaping policy at the very top. When we do see Bannon, he is standing behind the president wearing chinos, an open-collar shirt, and a ubiquitous frown. Bannon’s enigmatic presence has given the media license to create a disparaging portrait of an important White House player, and in so doing to intensify its assault on Trump.
This is the media’s character assassination of Bannon: nasty, nihilist, warmonger, racist, anti-Semite. A recent Time Magazine cover story about Bannon, describing him as the “great manipulator,” utilizes those five pejorative labels to generate a negative impression. All of the unethical media techniques—falsehood, misrepresentation, omission, cherry picking, anonymous sourcing—are on display. To support the argument that Bannon…
